Free Chains of Mist by T. C. Metivier Page B

praying that the signal would go through. But all he got was static buzzing harsh and distant in his ears.
    Listening to that coarse and empty sound, Austin felt a chill spread through him, as if a cloak of ice had settled around his heart. Panic touched him, and his fingers closed around the doorframe with such a grip that the knuckles turned white. He needed to hear their voices, a visceral, primal need that gripped him to his core and held him paralyzed. In desperation, he tried to bring up their faces in his mind, to hold them close against the fear and darkness that assailed him. But he found that he could not. They flickered like ghostly dreams, faceless and incorporeal, hovering just beyond his reach.
    Austin felt suddenly, horribly alone. His only living relatives besides his wife and son were a handful of distant cousins whom he had not seen or spoken to in years. Most of his friends were fellow Guild members, and were currently scattered to the four corners of the galaxy. The weight of the task ahead of him seemed to press on him like a mountain, and there was no one to help share the burden.
    And so Austin stood at the threshold, unmoving. He tried to calm his fraying nerves, to soothe his quavering heart. For his family’s sake, he tried to summon up his courage. For Justin’s sake, he tried to thrust aside his fear.
    But he could not. All he could think of were the horrors he had witnessed on Hilthak. All he could hear was Rokan Sellas’s grating, inhuman laugh. All he could see was the darkness closing around him, blotting out the stars, reaching into the very depths of his soul.
    And he was afraid.
    * * * *
    Sergeant Major Aras Makree, called the Black General by his troops, sat in silent meditation. An observer stumbling upon him would have been forgiven for thinking that he was asleep. His eyes were closed, his breathing soft and controlled, his expression peaceful.
    But his thoughts did not mirror his outer calm. They swirled with torment, with unease, with doubt. Ever since Hilthak, ever since he had first felt the oppressive sorcery infesting that barren moon and seen the horrifying power of Rokan Sellas, he had been unable to find peace. Old memories long forgotten surged to the forefront of his mind—memories of decisions past, of friends lost. It was as if the last five years had never happened, as if he stood once again on the surface of a dying world, making a choice that would forever change two lives.
    He opened his eyes. They stared forward, unfocused, unseeing. His lips moved, but the sound that emerged was barely more than a whisper. “Fate cannot be rushed, nor destiny preceded.” The words spun hollowly in his ears, fading away empty and broken. The mantra that had guided his steps for so long provided him no comfort; instead, it seemed to be mocking him. You chose this , the voice said. You chose your fate, you chose your destiny. And now they are upon you.
    Makree closed his eyes. Again, he sought inner peace; again, it eluded him.
    The voice continued, sibilant, insidious. What will you do now, Aras Makree? The time for regret is passed. Will you face that choice? Will you accept the path you laid before yourself?
    Makree had no answer. He searched his mind, plumbed his deepest thoughts, but was left stumbling and alone. He knew only one thing for certain: that the moment he had waited for these past five years had come. The moment he had dreaded was finally upon him.
    And he was not ready for it. By the gods, he was not ready.
    Thus we travel to Espir, to a convergence of destiny. Three men, broken by emotion: by anger, by grief, by fear. A fear that I thought I had accepted, that I thought I had shed five years ago, when I made that terrible, impossible choice. But now I see that I had fooled myself, comforting myself with the knowledge that the final repercussions of that action were safely in the future, unable to touch me. A fragile truth, now shattered, as my day of fate draws